1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the exchange of data over a network such as a public or private internet. More particularly, the invention concerns the operation of a server to selectively filter and cache internet access requests from the computers attached to the server, and subsequently resubmit the cached requests appropriately.
2. Description of the Related Art
Access to an "internet" is imperative for most computer users today. Public and private internets provide an especially convenient means for exchanging information. Internet users can quickly transmit data to others internet-connected sites, as well as research various subjects by downloading a variety of materials, such as text, graphics, and executable programs. Although the term "internet" is usually associated with the global and public Internet, there are both public and private internets. Private internets, often called "intranets" or "enterprise internets," often have access limited to employees of a particular company. One of the earliest and largest intranets, for example, is the network of the International Business Machines Corp.
An internet is an open interconnection of networks, supporting the exchange of information among various attached computers. An internet includes a network of routing computers, which receive access requests and cooperatively route the requests to appropriate host computers capable of executing the request. Advantageously, routing computers and hosts may use almost any different type of architecture and operating system. Within an internet, communications are typically conducted under a standard protocol, such as Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol ("TCP/IP"). Internets may employ a variety of electronic transport media, such as telephone lines, optical fiber, satellite systems, local area networks, etc. Users can access internets by a number of different means. In one example, a user's computer connects to a host computer directly via telephone line, cable television line, ISDN line, or another line, the host computer itself being coupled to internet routers by a T3 connection or other suitably fast link. In another example, a user's computer may be coupled to a network, such as a local area network, which connects to an internet by an appropriate means, such as a T3 connection.
Although the depth of information available through internets is nearly unlimited, there are definitely limits to internet access speed. Even the fastest internet access links can only carry so much data in a given period of time. Due to the limited communications bandwidth of internet access links, internet users may confront a number of different penalties. For example, users with local network connection to an internet may experience slow download times because or the local network's internet workload from other users. In this case, since the network server operates as a conduit to the internet, it may be burdened by many different simultaneous user requests to download information from the internet. In a corporate intranet environment, users can suffer from slow network performance despite whether their particular download request is urgent or not. For example, one user with a particularly urgent request to download critical accounting information may be delayed because of many other users busy obtaining weather information, checking stock prices, idly "surfing the net," and doing other less urgent tasks.
Especially frustrating is the fact that burdensome internet access tasks can prevent the network server from efficiently completing other processing tasks, completely unrelated to internet access. For instance, a large number of concurrent internet communication requests may slow the network server's completion of spreadsheet programs, personal calendars, mathematical computations and modeling, and other programs running on the network on behalf of individual users.
On the other hand, users that individually connect to the internet can avoid many of the problems experienced with internet access through local networks. Nonetheless, users with individual internet connect on still encounter different problems of their own. If the user's internet link is a telephone line, for example, long downloads may result in higher charges from the telephone company, and longer periods during which a shared telephone line is unavailable for other purposes, such as voice calls and fax use. Consequently, known approaches to internet access are not completely adequate for some applications due to certain unsolved problems.